LAWRENCEVILLE, NJ - Dr. Dominick Finello (left), professor of Spanish at Rider University, has published his fourth book, Cervantes: Essays on Social and Literary Polemics (London, Tamesis, 1998).

His other books are Pastoral Themes and Forms in Cervantes's Fiction (1994), An Analytical and Bibliographical Guide to Criticism on Don Quijote (1987), and an edition of Alfonso Sastre's La Cornada (1978).

Dr. Finello's new book examines a number of controversial issues about Cervantes' thinking and artistic creativity. The book begins with academic life, about which Cervantes had mixed feelings. This ambivalent attitude yielded comic portraits of students engaged in pedantry and false praise. It goes on to consider through character portrayal and the irony targeted at Old Christian values such as honor and blood purity, the status of the New Christian - the Jewish convert minority in Spain.

An analysis of Cervantes' bold experiments with technique and language in his fiction follows. A large portion of part one of Don Quijote introduces people and events into the main episodes of the novel through stories, and the inclusion of these interpolated stories stimulated adverse criticism when the novel was published. Dr. Finello concludes the book by studying the rhetorical beauty and persuasive power of the language of Don Quijote, who has left a legacy that seems as puzzling as brilliant.

In addition to his books, Dr. Finello has published articles and reviews in highly regarded journals such as Hispanic Review, La Torre, Revista de Filologia Espanola, Anales Cervantinos, Hispanic Journal, Anuario de Letras, and Bulletin of the Cervantes Society of America. He has twice been an invited lecturer at the famed Fordham University Cervantes Symposium. He has also been an invited lecturer at Michigan State University, the University of London, and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

A member of the Rider faculty for 27 years and a resident of Brooklyn, NY, Dr. Finello received his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Illinois-Urbana and a B.A. degree in Spanish from Brooklyn College. He has taught more than 20 courses at Rider, has helped revise the Spanish curriculum many times, and has introduced the study of Italian at Rider. He has been a member of the Executive Council of the Cervantes Society of America, the Institucion de Estudios Complutenses. He has also received several grants and leaves from Rider and the National Endowment for the Humanities.